Running Prism
System Tray
Quick answer
Prism runs as a native system tray application on Windows, macOS and Linux. The tray menu starts and stops the proxy, opens the Admin UI, shows logs, manages the managed SearXNG instance, and checks for updates — with no terminal, no browser and no Electron runtime involved.
Last updated Reviewed against Prism v0.3.26
What the icon means
| Icon state | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ● Running | The proxy is active and accepting connections on 127.0.0.1:11434. |
| ○ Stopped | The proxy is not running. Start it from the tray, or check Show Logs for errors. |
| ● Checking... | Status is being resolved, usually right after launch or a restart. |
Tray menu
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| Prism <version> | Shows the exact running version. Update it from the latest release. |
| Start / Stop / Restart Proxy | Controls the headless proxy process without opening the Admin UI. |
| Open Settings | Opens the Admin UI at http://127.0.0.1:8765/admin in your default browser. |
| Show Logs | Opens a console window with live log output. |
| Check for Updates | Checks GitHub releases and, when available, becomes "Update Available: <version>". |
| SearXNG: ● Running / ○ Stopped | Live status of the managed metasearch instance. |
| Start / Stop / Restart SearXNG | Controls the managed SearXNG process independently of the proxy. |
| Quit | Exits the tray and stops the proxy with it. |
Updates
Prism checks GitHub releases once every 24 hours and can install an update in place from the tray menu. The mechanism follows how Prism was installed:
| Install | How it updates |
|---|---|
| Windows MSI | Runs msiexec against the downloaded package. Version numbers stay monotonic so Windows accepts the upgrade. |
| Windows portable | Replaces prism.exe with the new build. |
| macOS DMG | Unpacks the new archive over the existing app bundle. |
| Linux AppImage / tar.gz | Replaces the AppImage, or unpacks the tarball over the install directory. |
Where the tray lives on each platform
| Platform | Tray implementation |
|---|---|
| Windows | Notification area icon. Prism is built as a windowsgui binary, so no console window appears. |
| macOS | Menu bar status item from the signed .app bundle. |
| Linux | Status notifier icon via the freedesktop tray protocol. Some minimal desktops need an extension such as AppIndicator support. |
No bundled runtime
The tray is a native platform feature through
fyne.io/systray. There is no Electron, no bundled browser and no background service to install. It is available the moment you run the binary.Headless alternative
On a server or in a container you can skip the tray entirely and run the proxy in the foreground:
prism --serve starts the headless proxy in the console. This is the same child process the tray spawns, so all proxy, provider and search behaviour is identical — only the tray menu is absent.